


Fugue for a watcher

by Deborah Laymon (dejla), dejla



Category: Highlander: The Series
Genre: Community: wip_amnesty, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-12-07
Updated: 2010-12-07
Packaged: 2017-10-13 13:38:34
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,992
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/137977
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dejla/pseuds/Deborah%20Laymon, https://archiveofourown.org/users/dejla/pseuds/dejla
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Joe Dawson is shrewd, dedicated, and stubborn. He also has an unfortunate tendency to pick up strays. This current stray is not a dog, but the dog's owner--an amnesiac homeless woman who may be more than she appears.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Fugue for a watcher

**Author's Note:**

> The songs quoted at the back of the WIP are for reference--no copyright infringement is intended.

**Fugue for a Watcher**

 

The door opened. A blast of winter-wet Seacouver air and swirling snow blew in a knot of customers and flipped the pages of the appointment book ahead, as if even the weather wanted to advance to 1996. Joe turned the pages back and set the phone firmly on the page marked December 14.

The waitress zigzagged between the tables, holding the tray with its load of bottles and glasses high over her head. She set the tray on the counter. Joe Dawson glanced away from the musician on stage. His raised eyebrow asked the question. Serena leaned forward to speak into his ear instead of trying to shout over the music.

“She’s there. I saw her start to eat it. I made sure I dumped another bowl of popcorn and pretzels on the table too.” She took a breath. “Old-fashioned, four draft, two Miller Lite, vodka-martini-with-an-olive.”

He nodded. “Good.” He squinted, trying to peer back into the shadows, but gave it up. “Who the hell let the yuppie in? Martini, shit...”

“ **Vodka** martini. With an olive.”

“Right,” he said, and started setting up the beers while Theo mixed the two drinks and popped the Miller.

“We don’t get many in here,” Serena said.

“She bad?”

Serena shook her head. The silver beads holding her braids in place glinted in the overhead fluorescents. “Doesn’t smell, doesn’t talk to herself, doesn’t have the crazy look in her eye; clothes are worn and they don’t fit, but they ain’t dirty. She stuffed the down jacket between her feet, and back in that corner, nobody’s paying attention to her, ‘cos she’s not in line with the stage. I don’t think she’s trouble, Joe, I think she’s just half-starved and frozen.”

“It’s that kind of weather,” he said, with a glance at the entry.

“And that kind of night,” she said, lifting the tray and moving away with it.

He nodded, rueful and pleased, with another glance around the bar. Amateur Night at Joe’s, draft beer for a quarter a glass, and he could always count on enough profit in one night to make two months’ rent and payroll. Even without the Watchers for financial support, he’d have been successful. The days when he’d made his supper on enough beer to keep the bartender from scowling and all the free bar snacks he could eat were so far distant they seemed to have happened to someone else.

The boy on stage finished off-key and made his way down to enthusiastic applause—it was a toss-up whether because of his playing or because he’d stopped torturing the audience. Joe waited for the next act. He managed not to groan when he saw that it was a group of five, with a lead singer wearing enough makeup to make her top-heavy and enough clothes to get her arrested for indecent exposure.

After the first few bars, he managed to block the singing, which was a pity. The singing in this case compared favorably with the playing. The bass player had to be at least a fifth mistuned.

By one o’clock, his head throbbed. He’d taken enough Excedrin™ for any amount of Excedrin™ headaches, and it might as well have been sugar pills. Over the next couple of minutes, he made a tennis match out of the clock: swing his head up to check the time, swing his head down to look at the audience. Some of the stragglers still hung in there. With the clock set twenty minutes fast for safety’s sake, he had to wait until what was twenty after to make last call.

Serena and Theo started easing people out: clearing tabs, making the last run-through, wiping up tables and floors. He ran his eye across the tables, saw the small figure in the too-big flannel shirt speak to Serena, saw Serena shake her head and move on by. Theo avoided the woman—and, knowing Theo, he avoided her because his six-foot-four ex-Hell’s-Angels body, even at fifty, had been known to make drunken idiots leave the bar in a hurry.

The last set finished, and he flicked the lights on and off twice, calling out “Good night, folks, see you next month!”

“Excuse—excuse me.”

A boy’s voice? His head jerked up, brief worry about someone underage in his place flooding through him, making the dull thump of the headache go sharp a second. No, not a boy. A high alto, but not a boy. The—what? Bum? Homeless person? Whatever she was, she didn’t have the crazy look, no. The down jacket was meant for a lumberjack, maybe, or Schwarzenegger: it engulfed her, falling to her knees. Her grey hair gleamed like pewter in the overhead lights, sleek as seal’s fur over her skull, and beneath the cap-cut, her dark eyes looked enormous, wells into which he could have fallen and in which been glad to drown. “Ma’am,” he said, shifting to get his weight balanced under him. “May I help you?”

“I have to pay for the sandwich your waitress brought me.” She held out a hand full of change: quarters, nickels, pennies. The money that would get her a safe flop at the Riverview that night.

He made a show of checking the slips. “You must be mistaken,” he said, and fanned the slips a second time. “Don’t see a sandwich here.”

She gritted her teeth, and for the first time he saw the lines in her ivory face. “I—I appreciate it. Thank you. But I have to pay you. I can’t get you in trouble with your boss. Please.”

From behind her, Theo bit back a snort, and Joe saw her flinch. He glanced at the neon sign visible through the window. “This is Joe’s,” he said. “And I’m Joe Dawson—the boss.”

She still held out the money.

 _Goddamn pride. Can’t do anything nice for anybody these days ... the ones who need it won’t let you..._ He looked her over again. Along with the khaki duffel bag, she carried a guitar case. He jerked a thumb at it. “That your guitar?”

She paled more than seemed possible—'her face at first just ghostly turned a whiter shade of pale’[[1]](http://archiveofourown.org/javascripts/tiny_mce/plugins/paste/pasteword.htm?1290982273#_ftn1)—and she said, “Yes,” as if she thought he might ask for it in trade.

“It’s amateur night,” he said. “Trade me a song for the sandwich.”

Color flooded back up her throat, into her face, but still she hesitated.

He reached beneath the bar to flip on the stage spotlight. “You need a plug-in?”

The first glimmer of a smile warmed her ghost’s face further. She shook her head. With her free hand, she pulled a worn leather change purse from her jeans pocket, poured the change back into it, then snapped it shut and stuffed it into a pocket inside the jacket.

She moved to the stage, set the duffel and the guitar down, then shrugged out of the jacket and laid it on the stage as if the garment were spun out of glass, not nylon. Under the jacket and a many-times wrapped plaid scarf, her quilted flannel shirt was a man’s, patched at the elbows, threadbare at the wrists. She unbuttoned that and laid it next to the coat. The spotlight revealed thin wiry arms, half-hidden under a too-big t-shirt surprising in its cleanliness, prominent collarbones, and above that the skeletal alabaster face under the cropped hair. He noted a white band of surgical tape on her left wrist, then dropped the thought as he watched her move. She opened the case, lifted the instrument out, and eased herself onto the edge of a stool, hooking one combat-booted heel in a rung so that she could rest the guitar in a modified lap guitar. He noticed that the boots were military, possibly surplus, scuffed and laces worn until one had been knotted to mend a splice.

The guitar was not at all new, but polished and maintained. A twelve-string acoustic, not a currently popular choice for a guitarist, and a difficult one for anyone but a strong player to handle. He squinted at it, eyeing what he could see of the wood. Flamy koa body…. He blinked and looked at the bridge again. Bat wing. _Yeah, a bat wing bridge with metal saddles_. And a French curve overhanging the sound hole. A Weissenborn. _I’ll be damned. A vintage Weissenborn, and she’s playing it?_ He still used the same Stratocaster he’d started on, but this acoustic had to be from the early twenties. _Thank God she hasn’t been mugged for it._

She checked the tuning, her eyes flicking back and forth between the strings and the room. The tuning was lower than normal—a Leadbelly tuning, a low-C, and that also wasn’t the common thing these days.

Hoisting herself a little off the chair, she fumbled in her jeans pocket and produced a black metal slide. Her smile widened just a little, as she laid the guitar across her thighs, and her fingers moved across the strings, finding the chords without a hitch or evidence of shyness. “It was down by old Joe’s barroom, on a corner of the square ... they were serving drinks as usual, and the us-u-al crowd was there...”[[2]](http://archiveofourown.org/javascripts/tiny_mce/plugins/paste/pasteword.htm?1290982273#_edn2)

Serena stopped wiping tables. Theo pulled out a chair for her, then sat down himself. As he leaned forward, the spotlight glinted off his balding white skull.

The pounding in Joe’s temples lessened; he relaxed into the bar. She had a damn nice voice, some sound of training in it, sweet but not sugary, husky and alto and the blues weighting the chords of it. He knew ‘St. James’ Infirmary’, but the verses in her version weren’t familiar.

“When I die, please carry me to my grave in a fine black hearse; put a gold ring on my finger, and a gold piece in my purse...”  As he knew it, it ran: ‘When I die, please bury me in my high-topped Stetson hat; put a gold piece on my watch-chain, show I died standin’ pat’. Re-written for a woman?

She finished with a slow dirge, and let her hand fall across the strings.

Joe applauded. After a second’s double-take, so did Serena and Theo. Fire flushed up the woman’s face, and a laugh escaped her. She put her hand over her mouth, then bowed her head to them.

“Would you play something else?” he said.

“What would you like?”

His mind went blank, and he fumbled a second. “Something old.”

A nod answered. She stared off into the distance again, then tested the strings again, found a chord, then a rhythm, and then—’Frankie and Johnny’[[3]](http://archiveofourown.org/javascripts/tiny_mce/plugins/paste/pasteword.htm?1290982273#_ftn3).

Serena whooped. Theo put an arm around her shoulders, muttered something to her, and then grinned through the rest of the verses. When the last chords rung from this one, Theo the silent said, “Okay, what about from the other side?”

It surprised a second laugh, and her eyes slewed to Joe, who just nodded.

“Irish?” she said.

“Why not?”

She pursed her lips, whistled a bar or two to herself, then nodded and caught the rhythm. “As I was a-going over Kilgarry Mountain ...”[[4]](http://archiveofourown.org/javascripts/tiny_mce/plugins/paste/pasteword.htm?1290982273#_edn4)

And he’d heard only a few singers sing ‘Whiskey in the Jar’ with the line “The devil take the women, lord, they lie so goddamned easy,” or refer to the woman in the song as “my darling sporting Jenny.” Near the end of the song, he noticed she was running out of breath, and the shadows under her eyes weren’t from his lighting. Only he, Serena, and Theo were left in the bar with her... time to close up shop.

She lost her breath on the last chord, and stopped, the guitar resting across her thighs.

“I got to close up,” he said.

She nodded. She crouched to put the guitar back in its case, and he slipped three fives and five ones out of the register.

“But we give a prize on Amateur Night, and I think you win, honey.” He limped across the floor now to give her the money, making enough of a show of the limping that Serena and Theo turned away to ignore the scene.

He held the bills out, watching her chew her lip the way she had over the sandwich. Her eyes stayed on his, not looking at the cane and his stiff-legged stance. Then, she took the money and put them in her pocket without counting.

“You two go on,” he said over his shoulder. “I’ll lock up after I let Miss—sorry, I didn’t get your name.”

Her lips parted. The flush came back up in her face once more. Then she shrugged and said, “Call me Ishmael?”

“Ishmael?” It startled a snort from him. Before he thought, he said, “Your mother didn’t name you Ishmael!”

“I don’t—remember.”

“You don’t remember your name?” Keep his voice soothing, keep it gentle; signs of spooking flickered in her eyes, and he didn’t want to spook her.

This smile was no where within range of real. “No. Crazy, isn’t it?”

“No, not crazy. Just hard on you, I’d guess. But I can’t call you Ishmael, honey, cause I sure don’t want you calling me Queequeg.”

A high-pitched giggle burst like a bubble from her throat.

“Ishmael,” he muttered.

“Thought it sounded better than Jane Doe.” The huge dark eyes watched him with all the intensity of a wild animal caught in a cage.

“What about Molly? Molly Doe, say?”

The very faint real smile slid back across her face. “Do I need a name?”

“The Y’s down near where I live,” he said. “Can drive you there tonight. They know me, they’ll get you a bed. I could use somebody for a couple hours in the morning, say eight to twelve, clean up around the place, set things up for the noon crowd. Pay you ten bucks an hour. It ain’t much...”

“I don’t have papers.”

He thought of a name, then a few more names. “We can get that worked out. Nobody’s gonna ask if you’re over twenty-one, Molly.”

With the smile gone, and the eyes narrow and bewildered, she said, “Why?”

 _Why indeed._ Joe and his taste for strays, his mom would have said; and Methos himself had said as much once. Duncan... well, in a way, like it or not, MacLeod was one of his strays, as was the old man. He shrugged. “Sometimes you find you got to do something. I ain’t doing you no favors,” and heard his voice go broader, back to the rhythm of his childhood, “I ain’t an easy boss. I need some help, you need some work, I think. Been down on my luck, myself—Got help when I didn’t expect it. Lemme pass it on.”

Her eyes still wounded him, dark and lost, but after a few seconds, she nodded. “Okay.”

“You let me drive you to the Y,” he said, “and you let me pick you up in the morning. Breakfast and lunch comes with the job.” He overrode her before breath got out from her lips. “Dinner you pay for, that way you don’t have to feel you got to eat here three times a day.”

Another pause, and then she nodded again. “Okay.”

“Shake on it?” He held out his hand. It dwarfed the thin long-fingered hand that took his, but her grip had surprising strength.

“Okay,” she said.

“Let’s lock up and go.” He stopped the word ‘home’ before it slid off his tongue.

“Molly” put the flannel shirt back on, and then the down jacket, still handling the jacket as if it might shatter when she touched it.

He considered this while he waited by the door; watched her put the guitar back in its case and pick up the rucksack; noted how she patted her pocket as if to see if something were still there. She met him at the door, glancing up at him under her long dark lashes.

“Are you carrying?” he said.

She frowned, then cocked her head at him. “Carrying?”

“A gun.”

“Gun!” She took a step back, as if expecting him to pull one on her. “No!”

“What’s in your pocket? You’re damn careful of it.” He left it unsaid that a gun resided in an inside pocket of his coat.

“My—pocket,” she said, and then that ghost of a smile flickered on her face. She reached into the jacket and pulled out something live—its tiny legs swam in the air. A dog.

A dog not much bigger than her hand.

“A Chihuahua?” he said.

She nodded. “He’s called Ahab.”

“Ahab!” He started to laugh. “Ishmael, Ahab—don’t you know any normal names?”

She met his eyes. “Dick.”

“Dick—” It took him a moment. Then he groaned. “What is it with you and that whale?”

“Well,” Molly said, “I guess you could say we were both out to sea.”

When he finished laughing, he held a finger out to the little dog. The dog sniffed at the finger, then licked the tip. “How long have you had him?”

“Since I remember,” she said. “I remember—a storm. And I remember this little thing running into me full-tilt and crying in terror. It’s not easy to get a bed if they know you’ve got a dog. I sleep outside a lot. I’m used to sleeping outside.”

“Well, it’s not safe,” Joe said, putting firmness in his voice. “We’ll just try to keep the Y from figuring out you’ve got him. You haven’t got anything else live in there, do you?”

She shook her head. “No fleas, no lice.”

“That’s not what I meant.”

Molly petted the blond dog and slid him back into her jacket pocket. She left the hand in her pocket, as if to support him. “It’s all right if you did. It’s not as if I haven’t heard it before.”

Joe grimaced. “How much of the sandwich did you feed him?”

Her dark eyes slewed sidelong at him.

“Half? Or more?”

“Half,” she muttered.

“Yeah. Remind me to swing through MickeyD’s on the way to the Y. It’s not gourmet, but it’s food.” _And I got to say that you look like a little extra fat wouldn’t do you any harm._

“You don’t have to do this, Mr. Dawson. I’m grateful—but you don’t have to.”

He shoved the door open with his shoulder and jerked his head toward the van. “Come on. It’s colder’n shit out here and we both need to get some sleep.”

She followed him, hesitated, but got in the passenger side.

He turned the key over in the ignition and stuffed his hands in his pocket while the van got warm. “And Mr. Dawson was my old man. I’m Joe.”

“All right,” she said. “Joe.”

*** *** ***

Over the next week, he collected her in the mornings, worried to himself when she disappeared after lunch, and relaxed when she reappeared at closing time. He had made a call on the morning of the second day, to one of the few people he’d trust to get him ID; whether she wanted it or not, she needed it for protection.

This morning, the weather offered a rare break: warm sun melting snow, the puddles on the asphalt reflecting rainbows. Molly was humming to herself as she scrubbed up a sticky spot on the wooden floor. Someone pounded on the back door of the bar. Joe straightened. He glanced around, saw Molly pause in her scrubbing to look at the door.

“I’ll get it,” he said. He made his way to the door, careful of his footing on the drying wood. He pulled the door open. “Not open yet—”

“Ah,” was the cheerful response. “But I come as the Greeks, bearing gifts. Or papers, which is much the same thing.”

Joe almost groaned, then realized it as giving Methos what he wanted. “Took you long enough. I called you five days ago.”

“Getting impatient in your old age?” Methos said: a soft amused taunt. “Show a little respect to your elders, Joe. Besides, the ID’s not complete until I get her photos on them. It is a her, isn’t it?”

“Like I’d give you Molly for a man’s name and not tell you. Come on in.” He moved back from the door. To his left, from behind the closed storeroom door, Ahab barked, at first interrogatively, and then ferociously, as if trying to frighten off an intruder.

Methos lifted an eyebrow, then reached out to open the door. He looked down at the Chihuahua in its wire cage. “Teaching the rats to bark, Joe?”

“Ahab is not a rat!” Molly got to her feet, indignation overcoming her reserve.

Might have been the old man’s intention, too, because he swung around, turned a shy smile on her, and said, “I’m sorry... You must be Molly. I’d say I’d heard a lot about you, but Joe’s been an oyster about his newest employee. I’m Adam Pierson...” He had her hand in his within fifteen seconds, and was rattling away at a great clip, most of it sheer nonsense, until the indignation and the bashfulness dissolved from her face.

Joe bit back an urge to hit the old man over the head with a beer bottle.

Then Molly glanced at him, mute appeal in her eyes.

Joe tapped ‘Adam’ on the shoulder and said, “Give the lady a break, will you? She’s got work to do and she’s not used to your charm.”

“Bit overwhelming on the first shot?” was the cool and impudent answer.

“One way of putting it.”

Molly giggled: when they both looked at her, she covered her mouth with her left hand—the one Adam wasn’t holding. Joe followed the old man’s gaze, realized that he was studying the white bandage. It was a fresh bandage, too—he hadn’t noticed that until now. She pulled her hand away from Adam’s. “I have to finish this cleaning.”

The old man shrugged out of his backpack and unzipped it, digging out papers, portable laminator, and camera. “First,” Adam said, “I have to get pictures for these papers.”

“Papers?” She looked at Joe.

“ID,” he said. “It’ll all be set up this way.”

“But it—won’t be legal.”

He shrugged. “It’ll be exactly what everyone wants to see.”

Her lips parted; she said nothing, though, just ran her tongue across her lips.

“Molly,” he said, more gently, “you need these papers. You and I both know that. If not to support yourself, then to take care of Ahab.”

“That’s not fair,” she protested. She blinked hard, dragged the back of her hand across her eyes.

“No,” Adam agreed. He stood with his hands in the back pockets of his faded jeans, his loose down jacket shoved back from his hips, every bit the grad student on a tight budget. “But he’s got a point. This papers will protect you, and they’ll protect Joe. Be reasonable and help us help you.”

“I don’t—I haven’t done anything to deserve your help.” She twisted her hands, rubbing the bandage covering her wrist over and over again.

He looked at Joe. Joe reached out, hesitated, then ruffled her hair: under his fingers, it felt soft and sleek as cat fur. Methos, hands still in his pockets, said softly, “It’d be a hell of a world if we all got what we deserved.”

Her eyes met his. Then, she nodded, and her hands stilled. Without any further argument, she let ‘Adam’ pose her in front of a white sheet tacked to one of Joe’s walls, let him shift her as needed to get the photos. She even sat and watched with interest while he finished his expert forgeries.

“There you go.” He handed over the papers. “Food handlers’ license, bartenders’ license—you can let her work at night, now, Joe—birth certificate, Social Security card, and driver’s license.” His shrewd hazel eyes studied her while she turned the driver’s license over in her fingers, and he said, “Can you drive?”

Molly blinked. She looked up at him, her head cocked to one side, with that uncanny half-spooked _idiot savant_ air. “I don’t know. I don’t remember.” She touched the picture on the license with an index fingers, outlining the features. “Photos always look so strange.” She laid it down on the table, then examined the others. “Mary Madeleine Doe.” She frowned, went back to the driver’s license. “Born eleven—November seven, nineteen sixty. So I’m—thirty-six.”

“My guess,” Joe said. “I had to give him some parameters.”

She turned that shy smile on him. “I don’t mind being thirty-six. Why a Scorpio?”

Joe blinked.

Methos’ mouth quirked; his eyes lit up, and he looked like nothing quite so much as an intelligent young scholar in his late twenties. “Came with the tombstone. I thought it seemed appropriate—lady of mystery and all.”

She nodded. “Oh.” She started to stuff the papers into her pocket.

Methos shook his head. “Ah-ah-ah.”

Molly looked up at him.

He dug a slightly battered wallet from his backpack. “Put ‘em in here. Don’t want to look too scuffed up right away.”

“What if somebody asks why they’re so new?” she said.

Joe answered at once. “You tell ‘em you got mugged, lost your papers, had to get new ones.”

“Oh.” She put the papers into the wallet. Put them in as if by rote. Something like that, not thinking about it, said that she had carried a wallet in the past. Joe kept his own counsel on it, but saw Methos’ eyes narrow a second, as if he also noticed her response. Not much the old man didn’t notice, come to think of it.

“Now,” Methos said, as smooth as a cat licking cream off its whiskers, “Joe tells me you play a mean guitar. Can I hear something?”

Molly hesitated, glancing at the drying floor.

Joe stepped in. “Music for the lunch crowd? Why not?” He turned, swung the cane to support himself, and headed back for the bar. “I suppose you want Dos Equis, like usual, Adam?”

Molly turned the wallet over in her hands, then stuffed it in her jeans pocket.

“Unless you’ve finally decided to stock Black Sheep.”

Joe snorted, but said without rancor, “I can’t afford to stock for one patron, even if he does drink more beer than any other twelve customers. Not with your bar tab.” He focused on Methos, pretending not to notice as Molly went to the storeroom and retrieved her guitar case.

She knelt on the floor, pulled out the guitar, and shifted to sit cross-legged on the damp floor while testing the strings. Joe heard her hum to herself, heard her run up and down the scale to match the pitch.

Methos said, “Perfect pitch?”

Joe nodded. Methos was more interested in her than Joe had expected. That could be good, or it could be bad. “Molly! You want lighting?”

She scowled down at a string, tightened it a little, plucked it, shook her head, then loosened it. “Whatever you think.”

“Definitely lighting,” Methos said.

Joe raised an eyebrow. “And thank **you** , Maestro. I’d already decided on it.” He glanced down at Molly. “Look, you going to get on stage or just sit there?”

Her head jerked up, her dark eyes wide and startled.

He slapped a smile in place, but it didn’t placate her; her fingers lay on the strings without a twitch.

“Sorry.” He hunted for a quick covering lie. “Uh—leg’s giving me hell.” In his periphery, Methos’ eyebrows arched.

Her eyes narrowed. She switched from his face to Methos’, nodded once, and got to her feet. “I’m going to get on stage,” she said.

Joe blew out a breath, torn between further apology and a general wish to belt someone or something anywhere in the vicinity. He settled for a grunted, “Good.”

She settled on the stool at stage center, rested the guitar across her thighs, frowned, and resettled it.

He fiddled with the lights; with the correct flood and filter, he could get her hair almost silver. Tarnished silver, but silver still.  _And listen to you_ , he gibed at himself, _talking to yourself like Tennyson at your age._

Under the lights, Molly looked down at the guitar strings, ran her fingernails along them. She pulled the slide out of her pocket, adjusted the guitar to a comfortable hold. She closed her eyes and begin strumming as she worked the slide up and down the strings. It was a piece he didn’t recognize, something gentle and precise, that then developed into a contrapuntal movement.

Methos leaned back against the bar. He folded his arms and pursed his lips in a soundless whistle. “You’ve landed a guitarist who knows Bach[[5]](http://archiveofourown.org/javascripts/tiny_mce/plugins/paste/pasteword.htm?1290982273#_ftn5)?”

“Bach? Bach didn’t write for guitar.”

“Well, no—when you don’t have a lute, a guitar will do. And a guitar is a little more portable than a lute.” He leaned forward a little. “Oh, that’s good. I like that fingering. Definitely classically trained. How did you run into her?”

“I guess you’d say she ran into me. Slipped in here two weeks ago on Amateur Night. Remember that storm? Hid in the back and bought a couple of cheap beers.”

The old man nodded. “Enough calories and carbs to keep you going if the blood sugar’s low.”

“Yeah. I got Serena to slip her a sandwich and she—Molly insisted on trying to pay me for it.”

Methos’ eyebrows lifted. “Poor but proud. I’m not going to tell you you’re getting soft in your old age, Joe. With you, it’s a congenital condition.”

“Thank you. Thank you so much. Always nice to know what other people think about you.”

A smile creased Methos’ face. “Your friends always know you better than you know yourself.” He crossed his arms; his eyes narrowed and his chin lowered a little, focusing on her. “She’s gone grey early.”

“You think?”

A nod answered. “You can tell it in the skin, and the throat. Thirty-six is about right, give it five years on either side.”

“Anything else you think about her?”

The old man shrugged. “You think she’s hiding anything?”

Joe watched her fingers move on the strings. Methos was right, damn it; she had a pretty fingering style, and one hell of a repertoire. He’d marked that himself, but not in the way the old man had: not as a clue to her identity. He shook his head. “I don’t think she’s faking it, if that’s you mean.”

“Not exactly, but it’ll do.” He rubbed the side of his nose. “I can’t place her accent. It’s American, not foreign, but she’s not from around here.”

“Hell, you’re not from around here. For that matter, neither am I.”

“True.”

The piece complete, Molly glanced up, smiled at them, and shifted into another song, something almost familiar: Leonard Cohen.

 _‘Hallelujah’. Odd choice._ Joe glanced sideways at Methos. “Anything else on your mind?”

“There some reason there should be?”

“Just that you’ve got that look on your face.”

Methos sighed. He gestured with one hand, the other still folded. “That look. What do you mean, that look?”

“The one that says something’s nagging at you and you don’t want to tell anybody.”

“If I don’t want to tell anybody, Joe, then why would I tell you?”

Joe jerked back a little. “Well, somebody got up on the wrong side of the bed today.”

The hand waved again. Methos gave him Adam Pierson’s sheepish grin. “Sorry. Thinking, that’s all.”

“That much I gathered,” Joe said. “Has anything in particular triggered the reaction, or is it something you indulge in while listening to guitar music?”

Methos said nothing at all for a second, then reached out and patted him on the shoulder. “I need to get some things done. I’ll talk to you later, Joe. Tell Molly I very much enjoyed her playing.”

Joe shook his head. Sometimes the old man was weirder than usual. He noticed that the song had changed again, this time to _I Ain’t Got Nobody._

Serena had unlocked the door. A group from one of the office buildings two blocks down, regulars, came in chatting, a little excited. Molly’s fingers slid into _Tears In Heaven[ **[5]**](http://archiveofourown.org/javascripts/tiny_mce/plugins/paste/pasteword.htm?1290982273#_edn5)_. Her eyes were closed, her head thrown back a little, her foot tapping against the stage.

The clusterfuck at the door dispersed, their attention turning to the stage. They settled around a table near the stage, and ordered lunch and drinks in whispers. When she finished _Tears_ , one of the men asked for _Like A Rolling Stone_. The faint shy smile returned to her face as she started the tune.

He kept track of the time. 90 minutes. He motioned to her then. She finished the song, smiled at her audience, and put the guitar away. She carried it over to him. He pushed a tuna-fish sandwich and a Coke across the bar to her.

With the sandwich half-gone and a second Coke down the hatch, Molly looked calmer and less haunted.

“If you’re willing to play for my lunch crowd,” he said, “I can add fifty bucks a day to your take. Still gives you the afternoon free.” He was absurdly pleased when her eyes narrowed shrewdly and she cocked her head to study him.

“Four days,” she said. “I want Wednesdays for other things.”

“Okay. Four days, and you get Wednesdays off.”

“All right.” She finished the sandwich. “I’m going to take Ahab for a walk. I’ll see you tomorrow?”

“If you come back at closing, I’ll drive you home.”

“I think I want to get to bed early, if you don’t mind.”

“If you’re going to stand me up…”

She looked worried for a second. Then her face lit up. “You behave yourself, Joe Dawson.”

“I ain’t misbehaving,[[6]](http://archiveofourown.org/javascripts/tiny_mce/plugins/paste/pasteword.htm?1290982273#_edn6)” he said, deliberately borrowing the title of her last song. He was rewarded with a laugh.

Molly went to collect Ahab. He saw her, with her swaddling coat like a tortoise’s shell, disappear out the back door, and thought no more about it.

*** *** ***

Methos felt the warning from some distance: outside the apartment building. It was worth the extra money for a doorman building, and even as a non-tenure professor at Seacouver University, he could afford it. He turned away from the computer and waited, trying to isolate the signal.

Not one of his gifts, to recognize a another Immortal when he felt him. One of the very few talents he regretted not having collected. The entryway button buzzed; he eyed it with irritation. Damn it, he was busy.

It rang a second time. It was going to go on annoying him if he didn’t answer it.

A third time. Yep. Annoying. Only two people he knew could be that annoying. He got up and hit the intercom. “Hello?”

“Can I come up?”

“Can I get a name?” He was allowed to be obstinate if he felt like it.

An exasperated huff of air answered. “Shit. Methos, don’t be an ass. Either buzz me in or tell me to go away.”

“Fine, fine. Keep your kilt on; I’m buzzing you in now.”

“Thank you.”

Methos scowled at the computer screen, then saved his search before locking the screen. He unlocked the front door and opened it just as Mac stepped out of the elevator. He closed and locked the door before saying, “Beer’s in the refrigerator. You might get me one while you’re up.”

Duncan went on through into the kitchen, came back with two open bottles of Westmalle. “This, La Trappe, and Weihenstephaner? What happened to Newcastle?”

“I have it on order. I’m a professor now. I can afford a variety.”

“You can’t buy local beer?”

“Of course I can. And do.” He took a swallow before continuing, “However, that was last week. Next week it’ll be back to local.”

“Being a professor has given you a taste for the finer things?”

Methos smiled. “I have always had a taste for the finer things. Adam Pierson hadn’t had a chance to develop it before now.” He settled on the sofa and propped his feet up on the coffee table.

Duncan wandered around the room. He noticed the locked computer screen, and stopped in front of it a moment. “Grading papers or writing more computer games?”

Buying time with another two gulps of beer, Methos considered his answer. He analyzed Duncan’s probable reactions, and came to a decision with the second swallow. “Neither one. Research.”

“Research?”

“Of the hitting your head against the wall variety.” Slouching comfortably into the overstuffed couch, he said, “I’m trying to run down where I might have seen a face before.”

"What sort of face?"

Methos gave him the answer Duncan really wanted. "Not one of us. A woman at Joe's."

"Oh, a woman. That explains it."

"Get your mind out of the gutter, MacLeod. If I went too close that way to her, Joe would have my head." He considered it, then added, "One or the other, anyway."

Duncan's eyebrows lifted. He swallowed beer, turned the bottle in both hands, studying the label, and then took another gulp. "Old friend of Joe's?"

"No. I think you're corrupting him, Mac. He's picked up another stray."

"Young? Old?"

"Well, I'd put her in the middle, in this day and age."

Duncan grimaced. "You're dragging this out. She have a name?"

"Joe named her Molly."

"Tell me you're not saying Dawson adopted a stray dog!"

Methos sputtered on the beer. He choked, coughed, and finally managed not to choke on beer and laughter at the same time. And then, knowing that Duncan had known he would, he gave in and told the Highlander what he knew of Molly Doe.

*** *** ***

Molly came in regularly. She filled her set with pieces Joe had never heard of, as well as folk music which slowly approached a rock beat the more she practiced.

Her clothes improved: a navy parka replaced the oversized shabby coat. She switched indigo Lees with flannel linings for her faded blue jeans, and flowered flannel shirts and new t-shirts put color in her pale northern skin. Even a new duffel bag from the Army and Navy store took up residence in the back room.

Not that she simply tossed out the old clothes.

A month into her gig, she admitted she spent a lot of time at flea markets and in the park nearest the Y. When the weather was warm, she liked the old piers. But it was winter now, and the wind off the water too icy. He broached an idea, with some nervousness, and was assured that she didn’t mind company.

A week later on Saturday, he joined her in the park. A bright blue sky warmed up the March morning. Molly sat cross-legged on a cushion, with the Chihuahua curled up, half-inside a covered dog bed lying on the concrete walk. She glanced up as he came near, smiled at him, then turned her attention back to her work. A sewing kit sat on the bench beside her. Ahab sat up and looked at him, ears pricked forward, tongue out, tail beating the fabric in anticipation.

“Spoiled,” Joe said, but pulled the plastic bag from his pocket and produced four cubes of freeze-dried liver. The Chihuahua’s tail wagged his entire body as he wolfed down the liver. “Where did you get a dog coat with feet?”

As she threaded a needle, she patted the cushion on which she sat. “Front of this.”

“Your old jacket? You made a dog coat out of that?”

She nodded. “Quilted, with denim from a pair of old jeans as backing. Better for him in the winter than what Nature offered. And I wanted to be sure that there was enough room around the crotch that I’m not going to have to wash it too often.”

Joe scratched behind Ahab’s ears, then picked him up and turned him over to examine the underside of dog and coat. Ahab’s feet churned the air; he looked horrified and offended. Turning him right side up, Joe apologized with another couple of pieces of liver, and was graciously forgiven the insult. “Leather around that, I see—and on the bottom of his paws. Really ingenious. Where’d you get the leather?”

“Flea market.”

He eyed the dog bed, then prodded it with his toe. “Not leather covering that.”

“Old tarp,” she said. “The inside’s covered with denim to keep the down in. It has a tarp cover I can pull up over him if it’s raining or snowing.”

Joe whistled softly. “What’s today’s project?”

She held up a circle of patchwork quilting. “Dog carrier. The new parka’s pockets aren’t quite deep enough, so I thought I’d make a winter one and a summer one. I can wear it over or under the coat.”

He shook his head. “You are amazing. Where did you come up with all that?”

“Well, you know Boston bluestockings—use it up and wear it out—”

His brain stopped on the phrase. After a moment, when he was sure she didn’t realize what she had said, he cleared his throat. “So, you were born in Boston?”

“Yes. One of those drafty old places up away from the waterfront. But it was in the family from whaling days…” Her voice died away, and her eyes went blank. Color flooded her face. She said, “Boston. Yes, I remember. I was born in Boston. We used to go for Sunday walks on the Commons…”

Joe pitched his voice with caution, as if he were hypnotizing a bird. “Many kids in your family?”

“I have two brothers and a sister. Jeremiah, Nathaniel, and Serenity.” She jerked awake suddenly when she  stuck herself with the needle. “Ouch!” Then, the dark eyes wide, she looked up at him. “I remember them. I can see their faces!”

"Your name," Joe said. Too much urgency in his voice. He tried to tone it down. "What did they call you--"

"I--" She hesitated. The brilliance in her eyes began dying. "I was--" She groped, her eyes now wide and lost once more. "Fay. It was a nickname. Fay."

*** *** ***

The Employees Only door squeaked. “Running a little late today, boss?”

Joe looked up from counting out the petty cash, then glanced up at the clock. “Damn. Yeah, I am.” He glanced at the clock again and frowned. “So is Theo.”

Serena stopped in the middle of unwinding her scarf. “He wasn’t feeling well yesterday. He didn’t call in?”

“Sorry, babe.”

“Babe?” She glowered at him.

“Sorry, Miz-don’t-call-me-sweetheart. I’ll phone him when I get out to the van. You gonna be okay if I leave you here and go over to the Y?”

“Yeah, of course. I won’t open until you get back.”

“Better not,” he said, and pulled the door shut behind him. Morning sun blinded him a second—Apollo being a bitch as usual—and he pulled his sunglasses out before he tried descending the steps. He’d rather spend time in a bar with Dionysius, absolutely. He scanned the parking lot and the street before climbing into the van. No sign of Theo. No sign of anything unusual. _Not like Theo to be late._

He turned the corner to the Y and hit the brake lever so hard he threw himself into the steering wheel, like ramming into a telephone pole. Wincing, Joe rubbed his chest. _Going to have bruises there, man…_

Cop cars. Six of them. Two ambulances. A crowd of people in undress, sloppy dress, uniforms, and in a couple of cases, blankets.

A car horn blared behind him. He eased off the brake and eased to the curb. Peering out the window, he looked for a short grey-haired woman in a too-large jacket, but saw nothing on the fringes of the crowd.

The passenger door rattled. He yanked out the gun, aiming without even thinking it over. Duncan put up his hands as he stepped back. "Damn it, MacLeod!" He hit the locks. The Immortal pulled the door open, then swung up into the seat.

 

* * *

[[1]](http://archiveofourown.org/javascripts/tiny_mce/plugins/paste/pasteword.htm?1290982273#_ftnref1)     “A Whiter Shade of Pale”, by Procol Harum.

[[2]](http://archiveofourown.org/javascripts/tiny_mce/plugins/paste/pasteword.htm?1290982273#_ftnref2)     “St. James’ Infirmary”, traditional

[[3]](http://archiveofourown.org/javascripts/tiny_mce/plugins/paste/pasteword.htm?1290982273#_ftnref3)     The point of course being the last stanza: “This story has no moral/ this story has no end/ This story only goes to show/ That there ain’t no good in men...”

[[4]](http://archiveofourown.org/javascripts/tiny_mce/plugins/paste/pasteword.htm?1290982273#_ftnref4)     Kilgarra, Kilgarry, or Gilgarra Mountain, traditional Irish, with the lines rendered as “She sighed and she swore that she never would deceive me/ But the devil take the women, Lord, they lie so goddamned easy,” and “And I swear he’ll treat me better/ Than my darlin’ sportin’ Jenny...”

[[5]](http://archiveofourown.org/javascripts/tiny_mce/plugins/paste/pasteword.htm?1290982273#_ftnref5)  Prelude, Fugue and Allegro for Lute in E flat major

* * *

[[1]](http://archiveofourown.org/javascripts/tiny_mce/plugins/paste/pasteword.htm?1290982273#_ednref1) We skipped the light fandango

turned cartwheels 'cross the floor

I was feeling kinda seasick

but the crowd called out for more

The room was humming harder

as the ceiling flew away

When we called out for another drink

the waiter brought a tray

 

And so it was that later

as the miller told his tale

that her face, at first just ghostly,

turned a whiter shade of pale

 

She said, 'There is no reason

and the truth is plain to see.'

But I wandered through my playing cards

and would not let her be

one of sixteen vestal virgins

who were leaving for the coast

and although my eyes were open

they might have just as well've been closed

 

She said, 'I'm home on shore leave,'

though in truth we were at sea

so I took her by the looking glass

and forced her to agree

saying, 'You must be the mermaid

who took Neptune for a ride.'

But she smiled at me so sadly

that my anger straightway died

 

If music be the food of love

then laughter is its queen

and likewise if behind is in front

then dirt in truth is clean

My mouth by then like cardboard

seemed to slip straight through my head

So we crash-dived straightway quickly

and attacked the ocean bed 

 

[[2]](http://archiveofourown.org/javascripts/tiny_mce/plugins/paste/pasteword.htm?1290982273#_ednref2)  I went down to old Joe's bar room, on the corner by the square

Well, the drinks were bein' served as usual, and the usual crowd was there

 

Well, on my left stood Joe McKennedy, and his eyes were bloodshot red

When he told me that sad story, these were the words he said:

 

I went down to the St. James infirmary, I saw my baby there

She was stretched out on a long white table, so sweet, so cool, and fair.

 

Let her go, let her go, God bless her, wherever she may be

She can search this world over, never find another man like me

 

When I die Oh lord please bury me in my high top Stetson hat

Put a gold piece on my watch chain, so the boys know I died standing pat

 

Get six crapshooting pallbearers, six chorus girls to sing me a song,

Put a jazz band behind my hearse wagon, to raise hell as we roll along.

 

Get sixteen coal black horses, to pull that rubber tired hack.

There's thirteen men going to the graveyard, only twelve men are coming back

 

Well, now you've heard my story, well, have another round of booze,

And if anyone should ever, ever ask you, I've got the St. James infirmary blues!

 

[[3]](http://archiveofourown.org/javascripts/tiny_mce/plugins/paste/pasteword.htm?1290982273#_ednref3) Frankie and Johnny were sweethearts

Lordy, how they could love

Swore to be true to each other

Yeah, true to the skies above

He was her man, wouldn't do her no wrong

 

And Frankie and Johnny went walkin'

And Johnny had on a new suit

Yeah, Frankie spent one-hundred dollar notes

Just to make her man look cute

He was her man, he wouldn't do her no wrong

 

Frankie went over to the barroom

Stopped for a bottle of beer

Said to the old bartender man

"Has my lover Johnny man been here?"

"He was my man, Lord, but he'd been doin' me wrong, so wrong."

 

Yeah, Frankie looked over the transom door

And there to her great surprise

There sat her lover man Johnny

Makin' love to Nellie Bly

He was her man, but he was doin' her wrong

 

Now Frankie, I beg you, don't shoot me

They'll put you away in a cell

They'll put you where the north wind blows,

From the hottest corner of hell.

I'm still your man, though I done you wrong.

 

Well, Frankie lifted up her kimono dress

And she drew out a little .44

She shot once, twice, three times she shot him

And through that hardwood door

Yeah, she shot her man

But he been doin' her wrong

 

He said," roll me over real easy

Roll me over real slow,

Roll me over real carefully,

Because my wound it  hurts me so,

I was your man, but I been doin' you wrong."

 

Well, they sent for Frankie's mother

Come down to Huddie's saloon

To see what's the matter with her boy

She come down, Frankie looked up at her

Here what she said:

 

She said, "Oh Mrs. Johnson, oh forgive me please

Well I killed your lovin' son, Johnny

But I'm down on my bended knee

I shot your man, 'cause he was doin' me wrong ah'.

 

She said, "I'll forgive you Frankie,

She said, I'll forgive you not, not

For killin' my lovin' son Johnny,

He's the only support that I've got,

'Lord, you shot my man and he was doin' you wrong."

 

Well, the last time I seen Frankie

She was a-sittin' in a dungeon cell

She would be there lonely, herself

With no one there to care

She shot her man, a-he'd been doin' her wrong, so wrong

 

Well, bring out the rubber tired (hearse) so long

You gotta bring out your pony and trap

Yeah, they're gonna take Johnny, Johnny to the cemetery (graveyard)

And he ain't never coming back

Well, he was her man

Oh, but he been doin' her wrong, so wrong

 

Well, the story has no moral,

But the story has no end

This story only goes to show

That there ain't no good in men!

She shot her man (he was her man)

But he was doin' her wrong

 

[[4]](http://archiveofourown.org/javascripts/tiny_mce/plugins/paste/pasteword.htm?1290982273#_ednref4) As I was a goin' over the far famed Kerry mountains

I met with captain Farrell and his money he was counting

I first produced my pistol and I then produced my rapier

Saying "Stand and deliver" for he were a bold deceiver

 

Chorus:

musha ring dumma do damma da

whack for the daddy 'ol

whack for the daddy 'ol

there's whiskey in the jar

 

I counted out his money and it made a pretty penny

I put it in me pocket and I took it home to Jenny

She sighed and she swore that she never would deceive me

But the devil take the women for they never can be easy

 

(Chorus)

 

I went up to my chamber, all for to take a slumber

I dreamt of gold and jewels and for sure 't was no wonder

But Jenny drew me charges and she filled them up with water

Then sent for captain Farrell to be ready for the slaughter

 

(Chorus)

 

't was early in the morning, just before I rose to travel

Up comes a band of footmen and likewise captain Farrell

I first produced me pistol for she stole away me rapier

I couldn't shoot the water, so a prisoner I was taken

 

(Chorus)

 

Now there's some take delight in the carriages a rolling

and others take delight in the hurling and the bowling

but I take delight in the juice of the barley

and courting pretty fair maids in the morning bright and early

 

(Chorus)

 

If anyone can aid me 't is my brother in the army

If I can find his station in Cork or in Killarney

And if he'll go with me, we'll go rovin' through Killkenny

And I'm sure he'll treat me better than my own a-sporting Jenny

 

(Chorus)

[[5]](http://archiveofourown.org/javascripts/tiny_mce/plugins/paste/pasteword.htm?1290982273#_ednref5)  Tears in Heaven

    Eric Clapton

Would you know my name

If I saw you in heaven

Will it be the same

If I saw you in heaven

I must be strong, and carry on

Cause I know I don't belong

Here in heaven

 

Would you hold my hand

If I saw you in heaven

Would you help me stand

If I saw you in heaven

I'll find my way, through night and day

Cause I know I just can't stay

Here in heaven

 

Time can bring you down

Time can bend your knee

Time can break your heart

Have you begging please

Begging please

 

Beyond the door

There's peace I'm sure.

And I know there'll be no more...

Tears in heaven

 

Would you know my name

If I saw you in heaven

Will it be the same

If I saw you in heaven

I must be strong, and carry on

Cause I know I don't belong

Here in heaven

 

Cause I know I don't belong

Here in heaven

 

[[6]](http://archiveofourown.org/javascripts/tiny_mce/plugins/paste/pasteword.htm?1290982273#_ednref6) Ain't Misbehaving

by Fats Waller

 

No one to talk with all by myself

No one to walk with

But I'm happy on the shelf

Ain't misbehavin' savin' all my love for you

 

I know for certain the one I love

I'm through with flirtin'

It's just you I'm thinkin' of

Ain't misbehavin' savin' all my love for you

 

Like Jack Horner in the corner

Don't go nowhere what do I care

Your kisses are worth waitin' for

Believe me

 

I don't stay out late don't care to go

I'm home about eight

Just me and my radio

Ain't misbehavin' savin' all my love for you

 

Like Jack Horner in the corner

Don't go nowhere what do I care

Your kisses are worth waitin' for

Believe me

 

I don't stay out late don't care to go

I'm home about eight

Just me and my radio

Ain't misbehavin' savin' all my love for you


End file.
